And de Blasio and his team continue to imply that the city was forced by arbitration to issue placards to members of the United Federation of Teachers. This doesn’t jibe with a newsletter article from the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators — the principals union — which sued to have its members’ parking permits reinstated following Bloomberg-era cuts and said the city “decided on its own to grant permits to teachers as well.”

In 2008, then-mayor Michael Bloomberg reduced the number Department of Education parking placards from 63,000 to 11,000, bringing them in line with the number of on-street parking spots allotted to schools. CSA represents 6,200 principals and other school administrators. UFT has 75,000 teacher members, in addition to 19,000 school paraprofessionals. DC 37 represents 25,000 DOE employees. Starting this week, all of those workers who own cars will be eligible for parking placards, returning to a system known for rampant abuse.

But de Blasio said Monday that since the number of on-street spots will remain the same, there’s no reason to worry about more illegal parking and traffic near schools.

“It’s still the same number of spaces,” Hizzoner told NY1. “So yeah, there’ll be more people competing for those spaces. But it doesn’t change the number of spaces.”

“I remind anyone who thinks that they can be cute and use one of these placards in an inappropriate way: You’re really running the risk of very big penalties and there will be consistent enforcement,” the mayor said.

The problem is, traffic enforcement agents have never shown a willingness to ticket cars with placards — real or fake. NYPD’s failure to address this abuse was one reason Bloomberg instituted the reforms de Blasio is rolling back. Does the mayor really believe a broken system has magically fixed itself?

This wasn’t lost on Errol Louis, who “pointed out that there are whole websites dedicated to documenting the lax enforcement and widespread abuse of city-issued parking placards,” according to the Post.

After the Post and other outlets picked up Streetsblog’s stories on new UFT placards, DOE Chancellor Carmen Fariña issued a statement on Medium.

“We encourage all New Yorkers who are commuting — whether to school or to other employment — to use public transportation,” she wrote. Because if anything encourages transit use it’s giving people carte blanche to park wherever they want.

Meanwhile, the tens of thousands of teachers and other DOE employees who do take transit, walk, or bike to work will get nothing out of the de Blasio-UFT parking perk deal. If they ride the bus, all they’ll get is a slower trip to work as more of their peers opt to drive.

In her explanation, Fariña implied that the city had no choice:

Starting Thursday, May 18, the DOE will issue parking permits to teachers, school staff and principals who request them. This change is a result of arbitration and court proceedings brought against the last administration that held that they had illegally unilaterally changed employee rights to parking permits without collective bargaining.

Again, this is misleading, since according to CSA the UFT permits were a separate issue. On NY1, de Blasio also glossed over this crucial detail, saying: “There was a lawsuit brought and that was the resolution of the lawsuit and other matters that had to be worked through in negotiation.”

City Hall and DOE have not responded to Streetsblog requests for a copy of the arbitration ruling, and won’t say why the city elected to reissue UFT permits. Yesterday we filed a freedom of information request for the ruling, as well as emails and other records pertaining to the issuance of new placards to UFT and DC 37 members.

“Starting Thursday, May 18, the DOE will issue parking permits to teachers, school staff and principals who request them”

If they can do this this quickly then how about Starting Friday May 19, All NYC parking placards/permits are null and void?

If an emergency worker receives a ticket in the course of their duty then they can contest it online.

snobum

“You’re really running the risk of very big penalties and there will be consistent enforcement.” At first I was thinking he’s crazy, but he’s right. Enforcement is consistent… Consistently non-existent.

Larry Littlefield

“It’s still the same number of spaces,” Hizzoner told NY1. “So yeah, there’ll be more people competing for those spaces. But it doesn’t change the number of spaces.”

The number of spaces will change after the election. Otherwise, grievance, lawsuit, arbitration, big cash award.

And more than $100,000 for an election lawyer, plus hundreds of volunteers to collect a multiple of the 7,500 signatures by registered voters required to be collected between June 6th and July 10, in the proper form, all to be challenged by in court and thrown out with any small error (or excuse).

Make sure you file a certificate of acceptance and all the other paperwork. And all the financial disclosures required at the right time and in the right format, or else (incumbents often don’t bother).

This is a taxable benefit. The City needs to withhold Federal Taxes etc. from Placard Holders. Thats Federal Law.

In Manhattan, the benefit is over $9,000. Therefore, about $3,000 would need to be withheld from people who sign up for these placards.

Larry Littlefield

Does anyone ride in limousines anymore? SUV liberal is more like it.

JudenChino

“It’s still the same number of spaces,” Hizzoner told NY1. “So yeah, there’ll be more people competing for those spaces. But it doesn’t change the number of spaces.”

Honestly, is he just, like, ya know, actually fucking stupid? Like, not intelligent in the classic sense? I mean, I don’t know how to react. Like, uh, yah, 55,000 more people competing for the same # of parking spots. Like, does anything matter anymore?

Like, why’d they grant it if, as they phrase it, they’re not really granting anything since the # of spots don’t change. Like, assigning the # of placards to match the # of actual DoE spots makes sense as policy. This is just . . . legalized corruption.

mosy

Wow, it’s amazing how off the mark every comment on here is. Teachers get no respect in NYC. Who in their right mind thinks parking enforcement gives a damn about a teacher parking pass?

Teachers had passes just like these before 2008 and they gave tickets to anyone using them in the wrong place. You can’t even use them to park in a DOE spot at the wrong school, you will get ticketed. It says exactly where you can park.

The current system has a school with 75 employees get 7 passes. The problem is that 12-13 cars fit in the assigned DOE parking. A teacher would have to get there early, go inside, get a pass, then go park their car. If you parked in teacher parking to get the pass you would likely get a ticket while getting the pass. Never mind the fact that there is nobody assigned to handle giving out or collecting the passes daily, so somebody has to volunteer. I’d love someone who posted above to use a pass for the day with your car and park in the wrong place. You’ll see how “lax” enforcement really is.

The de Blasio administration chose to reissue tens of thousands of parking placards to city school teachers, and was not forced to do so by an administrative law judge, according to the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, the union that represents school principals.

Get ready for a lot more car traffic and illegal parking around New York City schools. The de Blasio administration is returning to a system that enables widespread abuse of parking privileges, with the Department of Education agreeing to hand out parking placards to any school employee who has a car and requests one, reversing reforms instituted during the Bloomberg administration.